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Bob Dole couldn't persuade Senate Republicans.
Former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) made a rare Senate appearance this morning, sitting in a wheelchair just off the floor so that members would have to see him as they entered the chamber. Why? Because they were poised to vote on ratification of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, and Dole hoped to send a message.
It didn't work. The Senate killed the treaty this afternoon, with a final vote of 61 to 38, which seems like a lopsided majority, but which fell short of the two-thirds necessary for ratification. Eight Republicans broke ranks and joined Democrats in support of the treaty, but the clear majority of the Senate GOP voted to block it.
The U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities, for those who've forgotten, is a human rights treaty negotiated by the George H.W. Bush administration, which has been ratified by 126 nations, including China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, Syria, and Saudi Arabia.
But most Senate Republicans saw it as a threat to American "sovereignty," even though the treaty wouldn't have required the United States to change its laws. When the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved the treaty with bipartisan support in July, Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.) explained the proposal simply "raises the [international] standard to our level without requiring us to go further."
In other words, we wouldn't actually have to do anything except say we like the treaty -- and then wait for other signatories around the world to catch up to the United States' Americans with Disabilities Act.
The treaty was endorsed by Dole, John McCain, and Dick Lugar, among other prominent Republican figures, but it didn't matter. The GOP's right-wing base, led in part by Rick Santorum, raised hysterical fears about the treaty, and most Senate Republicans took their cues from the party's activists, not the party's elder statesmen.
Update: Here's the roll call on the vote. All 38 opponents were Republicans.
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Rick doesn't seem to want what his daughter gets to the rest of the world. Thats unfortunate. :( that and how many times do we get measures with 61 votes??
Why does this sort of thing take a super majority? This is tyranny and rule by the least of us, in this case, the least compassionate. Now it goes on record that the whole country voted against this.
Because A) the Constitution was written by reasonable men who had the expectation that their descendents would remain reasonable, and B) it's an international treaty.
There are things that really should require the greater consensus and an international treaty is one of them. Unfortunately in this day and age, that gives an inordinate amount of power to screw things up to the extremist minority.
A treaty is in the Executive powers in the Constitution, with the requirement of ⅔ of Senate "Consent".
Admittedly, we look like "American Idots" based on 38 Senators that don't care that we look like that, and just hate the UN in General. That shows how far right we are, or how ignorant we are to vote for some yokels that just spout b.s. constantly and think the UN has any say in our laws.
Truly idiotic and insane.
I think much of this is just Obama derangement syndrome.
We've had some interesting things happen at the UN, but none of that makes the U.S. under the U.N. control.
This required a super-majority because
1] The Constitution says so [this is sufficient]
2] The Constitution also says that traties are equal to the Constitution [the supreme law of the land], and so we do need to be careful in what treaties we add to the "law of the land".
However, we might also try thinking. This treaty is not objectionable, except as a 1st part of a mystical "slippery slope". Of course, any new law or treaty can be seen as the start of a slippery slope. So, ALL laws can be opposed for this reason. And so, it is not a valid reason to oppose ANY law. [You can see that, right?, at least if you think and are not a GOP troll].
Also, this, or last, week I saw a report that genocide is continuing around the world because governments of 3rd world countries have learned that the UN will do nothing about it. So if 3rd world countries can slaughter minorities with impunity, how reasonable is it to think that the most powerful nation will be compelled by the UN to do something it doesn't want to? To my eyes, "not bloody likely."
Wow, how low can they go ,are they purposely trying to look bad?
We must look like idiots to the rest of the world. We won't ratify a treaty based on our own law?
No, but Iran did.......
The GOP no longer even sees Bob Dole as he's too moderate. They would run over their own mothers as they stampede to the right. Moving to the right apparently also means disregarding the disabled.
It makes me think of what Hitler did to the disabled. They didn't fit his view of Aryan perfection. Fascists always think of the disabled as inferior and not worthy of living.
I feel more for the mental cripples who think america stands alone in the world! we are a planet and should participate in its stewardship. What nerve though! still waiting for one reason to support the gop!
It looks for all the world that the remainder of this congress and senate session is going to be devoted to living out Captain Ahab's last words by Herman Melville.
The one about hate's sake and spitting one's last breath at thee...
Very sad, indeed.
Is it wrong to wish a disability on those bastards?
Yes.
They already are disabled, mentally.
And you expected something different from Republicans, like compassion, or sanity? Come on, don't you know them by now? You can't get blood from a stone. These Republican jerks won't vote for it unless their rich lobbyist donors tell them to, they're weak, morally corrupt, and downright evil.
They are fascists.
Wow, dissing Bob Dole and John McCain? So the UN is back as the anti sovereign boogie man like John Birch Society states?
Jan #25, this is a Treaty, which is in Article 2 (Executive Powers), section 2
Sandy,
For many of these people, the UN never left as the anti sovereign boogie man.
Also, for the record, The John Birch Society was welcomed back as a sponsor of the CPAC Convention (and, by extension, as a "Member in Good Standing in the Republican Party) in 2010.
They were subsequently "uninvited" in 2011, and again in 2012, but the ACU did invite some white supremacist nationalist for the 2012 gathering.
So, they were kinda there in spirit.
We'll have to wait and see what the ACU does in 2013.
And I bet people like Rich Santorum (and his tiny band of followers) still can't understand why Barack Obama won a second term and Democrats did nothing but gain power.
Bastard republicans...wait till 2014.
Rick Santorum should be sentenced to have his mouth duck taped shut except for 3 short meal a day
Shame, again. Very sad.
Did proper action just comment on "the utter foolishness of homosexuality"? Did I read that right?
By that reasoning, what else is foolish? Blond hair? Dark skin? Blue eyes?
WTF?
I must now "ignore" another person to be sure I never listen to neo-Birchers/TPs.
Wow! The John Birch Society and associated Tim LeHaye lovers (Left Behind-ers with their perverse view of the Book of Revelation) in the religious right represent mainstream GOP thought. Paranoia has carried the day. Just wow!
So Proper it does not bother you that if an American is overseas and they have no provisions for handicapped accessible bathrooms or other facilities? That they can just pee all over themselves? Too bad, so sad? Here's the deal. Santorum obstructed this out of a fear of home schooling being effected. That somehow it would magically cause problems with his right to pollute his kids minds with untruths and lunacy. This was about other countries raising their standards for the handicapped of all world communities including Americans. I am so tired of this willful obstructionism. All rationality is gone. We chose NOT to elect Santorum and I think it's reprehensible that he can sit on the outside pulling puppet strings to make the loonies dance.
Funny enough, the fear of homeschooling being affected by treaties is why the US hasn't ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child - with major parts of said treaty preventing child abuse, strengthening child welfare laws, and allowing children to be able to have rights that don't get quashed by their parents.
We're among South Sudan and Somalia with people who refused to ratify that treaty.
The arrogance of these people is mind boggling. This just brings the rest of the world up to US standards & has no impact on our quote unquote sovereignty.
The new political slogan. "Clean (the) House in 2014. (of Republicans) Just get them out of the way.
This was the Senate, not the House.
Unfortunately, the treaty vote is in the Senate, so your immediate complaint is with the members of that body. Not that we should not clean the House as well.
Are we SURE we couldn't live with a one party system?
Beep! The article tells me nearly nothing about the treaty itself; the good things about it; the reasons given and the actual reasons the GOP stepped on it.
The author didn't tell me enough about the treaty for me care if it was ratified or not.
Meh, say I.
Google "UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities."
Doing your own research is not only enlightening, but FUN!
Don't think the Wing Nut Proper Action subscribes to Rush Limbaugh or Faux News. I think he goes one step further and follows the wing nuts spewing the Fear Mongering "New World Order". The only New World Order that exists is the rich taking more and more for themselves and of course they can scare Proper Action and the less educated like himself into believing they are helping fight for "freedom".
What a disgrace the current GOP is. They live their lives in fear, based on found-less conspiracy theories, and unfortunately have a direct impact on how other Americans are represented on the world stage. I find them an embarrassment. It is shameful that the United States is being led by the nose by a group of disrespectful, hateful people. Mr Dole is to be commended for making the effort he did...I can't imagine how disappointed he must be of his cowardly colleagues.
@ Proper Action...you are a buffoon as are the majority of the Senate GOP. There is absolutely no threat to our nations sovereignty from the deliberations of the United Nations. We have participated fully in the business conducted there since it's inception, of which we were largely responsible for. To hold ourselves above the work done there is hypocritical and absurd. Here's a resolution that helps to protect rights of individuals which is less pervasive than laws we ourselves have already enacted with overwhelming bipartisan support I might add, and the GOP is objecting on the grounds that they don't like for us to be told what we can or can't do. We can impose our will across the globe...but won't listen to anyone else unless we feel like it. We are not above the law, nor better than anyone else in this world.
These people need to add some moral fiber to their diet. Then again, if they can walk by one of the most respected elder statesmen in their party -- in a wheelchair, no less -- and still vote no ... then maybe there really is no hope for them.